Justine's Halloween Blog Party 2015

You're all welcome to attend my yearly Halloween Blog Party! It's in a new place this year, but it's not hard to find. You have a full moon to light your way.

Just follow that helpful little bat and his friends through the graveyard...

Almost there...

There's the place! Looks like it's raining, so you better hurry in.

I'll just open the door for you...

Welcome! Come on in!

Looks like the bats are staying for the party.

There are already some guests here to greet you!

Miranda was first to arrive as Rita Skeeter, that pesky, poison-pen reporter from the Harry Potter stories. She arrived early so she wouldn't miss a moment to report on.

Next was Alicia as a Mad Hatter Villain. She manages to be both colorful and scary at the same time. Look at those eyes! Alicia is a really talented makeup artist. Check out some of her Halloween makeup looks and tutorials here.

As if that Mad Hatter wasn't scary enough, two of those bats that flew into the house transformed into vampires before our very eyes! Patricia and her date Chris:

Old Fashion Halloween had a more traditional entrance when she knocked on the door. Although, being the Steampunk Seamstress that she is, she'd flown in on a Steampunk airship to get here.

We all heard the sound of dripping water outside. Something had emerged from the sea and was heading toward the house. It was Bob as Jaws!

There's lots of good music at the party thanks to Dead Air 98.3 FM: http://radiodork.com/

I've been listening to Dead Air through October and I've been hearing so many songs I've never heard before. Go listen, and I bet a lot of these songs will be new to you too. Dead Air dug deep, deep, deep into the past for some of these songs. There are quite a few from the 1930s.

Clay, the guy who assembled all of those wonderful vintage Halloween songs for Dead Air, sent his daughter Emily as his representative to the party. She emerged from the graveyard outside and glided to the door as a Corpse Bride!

Next to the door was a really creepy creature: Venom from the Spiderman comics! Just look at those claws. Venom had taken Jason as his host for the night.

A flash of fire shot up outside the window!

Out of the flames emerged Chris as a fashionable Devil!

Chris was also nice enough to bring brownies for everyone! (They were baked in the fires of Hell.)

Melody as Red Riding Hood came running up to the door with the big bad wolf on her heels! Luckily she made it inside in time.

There was more commotion in the graveyard. Look who stumbled out and made their way to the party! The Real Queen of Horror, Zena and her husband as a rebellious and a geeky zombie.

A fun party activity was watching the old Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Haunted House"

You might recognize a lot of the gifs in this post from that cartoon!

There's still time left if any of you would like to join the fun! Just send me a costumed pic and I'll add you to the group.

P.S. ~ As a little party treat to go with the Disney Halloween theme, here are bunch of cute coloring pages you can print out:

Disney Halloween Coloring Pages 

Little monsters in the mail

Guess what I received in the mail today? A bunch of little monsters! They were printed on trading cards, and some of them were pretty creepy. These cards were my prize for winning "The Dead Hate the Giving" giveaway held by The Midnight Brood. Be sure to check out his spooky movie themed blog here:  http://themidnightbrood.blogspot.com

Here are some photos of the cards I received. You can click on these pictures to see them a lot larger.

Aren't these cards great? They're so vibrant and colorful. They'll probably be going on one of my bulletin boards, along with my other spooky things.

I was excited to win this prize, even though I wasn't familiar with the "Monster in my Pocket" cartoon these were based on. At first I was a little embarrassed to not know about this. I mean, this came out when I was a child. What kind of self-respecting, Halloween obsessed little girl wouldn't know about this? Well, it turns out that only one episode of the cartoon ever aired. So that lifts a little of my guilt. :) You can watch that one and only episode on The Midnight Brood's blog by Clicking Here.

Actually, there's a lot to learn about the "Monster in my Pocket" cartoon, trading cards, and collectable toys. There was a surprising amount of merchandise made, considering that only one episode of the show exists! You can read more about the show and products on the Monster in my Pocket Wikipedia page. 

You may have noticed in my pictures that not all of the cards feature traditional "monsters". Sure there are Vampire, Zombie, and Bigfoot cards, but the collection also features some creatures you may not have heard of. I decided to share a few monsters I didn't know about before today. Let's see if you're familiar with these:

This giant bird is named "Roc" and lives in Madagascar off the coast of Eastern Africa. I noticed that all of the monsters that were new to me originated from countries outside of the U.S. Maybe if I lived in Africa, I would have heard of this bird. Anyway, he is described as being the size of an airplane! Evidently, this creature eats Elephants...

The Chimera looks like the kind of creature Napoleon Dynamite would think up! Remember the Liger? He is from Greece and stands seven feet tall. The Chimera is part lion, goat, and snake. As if that isn't creepy enough, this creature has breath that is hot enough to melt lead!

This is Kali. She lives in the jungles of India. Kali has four arms, sheds her skin like a snake, and wears a necklace made from human teeth. Eww... She will eat anyone who gets in her way - even her own children!

The last unfamiliar creature is Redcap. This little guy is Scottish and the most evil of the fairies. He hangs out in castles, but sometimes comes out to attack travelers. The back of this card actually says "He's especially fond of redheads and rednecks." Ha!

So did you already know about any of these creatures? I'm sure that the world is full of monster stories I've never heard.

Oh, and there are two more things I want to mention!

1) You'll notice a picture of Halloween candy on the left side of my blog. Clicking on the candy will bring you to my profile on HalloweenForum.com. If you are a member of that site, please send me a friend request. If you don't know about Halloween Forum, it's worth checking out. There are lots of like minded people on there sharing photos from their Halloween parties and home haunts. You'll find ideas and inspiration there. Some of the site members are very advanced with prop construction!

2) I'm working on a blog entry about Ouija Boards. If you happen to own an antique spirit board of any kind, or a homemade one, or a board designed outside of the United States and Canada, please email me a photo of it. I'd like to post a few pictures of unique boards in that post. I think that's going to be an interesting blog entry!

Edgar Allen Poe's Birthday

Today is Edgar Allen Poe's 202nd birthday. This is the second year that "The Poe Toaster" has not shown up to leave three roses and a partially-filled bottle of French cognac at Poe's grave site. The mysterious mourner visited the grave with gifts on Poe's birthday every year from 1949-2009.

As a Poe tribute, here's a video clip of one of my favorite Simpson's Halloween Specials: Homer Simpson reenacting "The Raven" with James Earl Jones narrating.